Cabin management systems on aircraft and other passenger vehicles typically use static databases to map cabin and seat controls to corresponding controller functions per the layout of the passenger area (LOPA). Typically, a custom database, which is specific to the given vehicle layout, is manually generated by a database generator for the cabin management system, and a corresponding overhead is required to generate, maintain, and deploy the database. Also, an in-flight-entertainment system is typically used to provide communication between passenger seat controls and overhead units. Some of the drawbacks associated with typical cabin management systems include the following: they often require a database generator to produce a specific database for the vehicle layout; they often require time to generate the database; they often require a configuration management system to track revisions of the database; they often require a mechanism to deploy the database; they often require in-flight-entertainment systems to route messages to the cabin management system; they often require an overhead associated with mapping in-flight-entertainment and cabin management system functions; they often require a great deal of weight; and they often are overly expensive and complex.
A system and method is needed to overcome one or more issues of one or more of the existing cabin management systems and methods.